It’s a fundamental, common sense rule of journalism: Hard news reporters don’t cover their friends. It’s just too difficult to be loyal to the truth when the truth makes a friend look like a jerk, or a crook. The same rule holds for commentators. Can they really give thoughtful, unfiltered opinions… CONTINUE

Many years ago, in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the then president of CBS News met every week with the top brass of the CBS network at Black Rock, the company headquarters in Manhattan. After one of those meetings he returned to his office at the CBS News… CONTINUE

Bad news is built into the DNA of journalism. Reporters don’t cover the bank that didn’t get robbed or the plane that didn’t crash. Tornadoes and earthquakes and hurricanes make page one. Sunny days don’t. But we all know that most banks don’t get robbed and most planes land safely and… CONTINUE

From time to time when I write something about President Trump that his loyalists don’t like, some of them take to social media with a variety of thoughtful observations, like “Drop Dead, Bernie!” I always welcome intelligent comments, so thanks to all of you who send messages like that. And… CONTINUE

Donald Trump really screwed up. No, not with the Russian collusion thing. If there were anything to that we’d all know it by now. The New York Times would have run headlines the size of the Empire State Building telling us about it. “Trump and Putin subvert American Democracy. Trump To… CONTINUE